The Clipless Paper Fastener Company

Newton, Iowa    1909 - 1930?

As the name implies, the Clipless Paper Fastener Company of Newton Iowa manufactured so called "staple-less staplers".    These devices use the paper itself to form the fastening element by punching and folding a tongue from the paper, then drawing the tongue back through a slit in the paper.

The company was founded in 1909 by J. C. Hawkins of Newton, Iowa.   Hawkins was the son of a Kansas state legislator and was a successful attorney before turning his attention to his paper fastener company.    The company's first product, aptly named the "Clipless Paper Fastener" was a hand-held, plier type device based on a 1910 patent granted to Ralph B. Reasoner from Marshalltown, Iowa.     Hawkins began manufacturing in 1909 and later obtained the rights to Reasoner's patent.

A number of improvements were made to the device in 1910 and 1911 with two patents granted to Daniel Gage of Cambridge, MA (assigned to J.C. Hawkins) and several more to Hawkins himself.  In 1915, Hawkins was granted a patent for a desktop version of his paper fastener which the company had marketed since 1910 under the tradename "Clipless Stand Machine".

The Clipless Fastener Company's chief competitor was the La Crosse Wisconsin-based Bump Paper Fastener Company.   George Bump actually filed a patent application 7 months before Reasoner for both a hend-held staple-less paper fastener and for the method itself - the finished product consisting of a punched and folded paper fastening.    The original application contained both the method and the machine.   Bump later divided the application and was eventually granted separate patents.   

Even though Bump's patent application was filed 7 month's before Reasoner's, Reasoner's patent was granted less than six months after filing, while it took Bump over four years to obtain his first patents.     Curiously, the assignee for 1/2 of each of Bump's first two patents was J.C. Hawkins of Newton, Iowa - the same J. C. Hawkins that founded Bump's main competitor.    Whether this arrangement was due to litigation or some kind of financial arrangement is unknown.

Regardless of manufacturer, the device's method of fastening is the same (refer to the diagram below).     When the handles are compressed, the elongated, triangular-shaped punch cuts a V-shaped tongue in the paper.   The end of the punch is angled so as it cuts, it starts to fold the paper backward (toward the handle).   At the same time the punch is cutting a tongue, another cutter called the "needle" cuts a 1/4" wide slit parallel to and and slightly (1/8") in back of the folded part of the tongue.

As the handles are futher compressed, the front edge of the hinged folder contacts the paper holder, causing the folder to swing backward.   The tip of the folder pushes the end of the tongue into a hole in the needle, effectively "threading the needle" with the cut-out tongue.  &nbsb; When the handles are released, the tongue is drawn up though the slit made by the needle.  As the paper is pulled out of the paper holder, the part of the tongue that was drawn through the slit is folded back onto the paper completing the fastening.

The diagram above shows the "Hand" machine, the "Stand" machine has a similar operating principle.

The Clipless Fastener Company's products were expensive for the time.   In 1910, the hand-held fastener cost $5.00, the equivalent of $95.00 today (by late 1911, the price for both the "hand" and "stand" models had dropped to $3.50).   By comparison, the Bump Co. hand-held paper fastener cost only $2.50.   To compensate, the Clipless company used aggressive marketing tactics such as sending out their fasteners "on approval" and billing the customer later.   See the letter from 1910 (280KB).

In addition, J. C. Hawkins believed in having a highly trained sales force. In 1909, Hawkins wrote a guide for his salesmen entitled "Salesmanship, or How to Make Money", desribed as:

"...well worthy of perusal as it contains much trite information which could only be gained by actual experience."

As it turned out, the Clipless Fastener Company's skilled sales force and innovative marketing techniques were no match for the much lower prices of the competition.   The Clipless Fastener Company was aquired by the Bump Paper Fastener Company in the early 1930's.

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